On the other hand, Kashmira even talks about the positive aspects of reality shows in her article. She expresses, “However, some reality shows may even show positive things, which viewers can learn and apply in their daily life.” This view of hers is also agreed by us, as reality television can make parson learn more about teamwork or be motivated in life to reach their goals or even chase a dream.
Next we have, Larry expressing hi views and opinion in his blog. He hits another important aspect of reality shows, that is, children watching reality from a different perspective. He says, “With reality TV shows children are seeing what ‘reality’ according to Hollywood is rather than what life is like. Life is a little about drama, violence, and stupid stunts, but it can also just be fun, full of family, and enjoyable; however that second half does not usually make great television.” He feels that for children of young age, reality shows give a wrong definition of life to them. He does even talk about the affirmative side, but he means that it cannot influence children in the way the darker side of reality television can affect them.
We also have an article by Marc Steel talking about this issue. He firstly talks about the addiction people have on these reality shows, which provokes them to watch any kind of content they are shown. He expresses this as, “This is the essence of the success of reality TV, it survives because of the sheer contempt that its audience have for it.” He also states, “People are just totally gripped by misanthropy, the ridiculous and the cruel to an extent where they just can’t divorce themselves from it.” His outlook of the viewers’ obsession to watch such reality shows can be clearly seen in this statement of his.
Marc Steel has even worked out on the reasons why people get addicted to such programmes, and his observation is that, “The beauty of the reality show is that it leaves the viewer feeling like a part of the experience, something that the intelligent comedy shows cannot provide. I am sure everybody has found themselves willing on their favourite American Idol contestant at some point and being distraught when they get eliminated.” His analysis of the cause of the need to watch every episode of the various reality shows is very much correct, as the viewers do feel themselves to be a part of the show. The producers of the show make their programme even more successful as they make the viewers vote for the contestants according to the performance they have given in the show. The audience’s approval or disapproval for the participants plays a very vital role in the show. According to give a vote to one of the participants, the viewer has to watch the show in a regular basis and get emotionally attached with the contestants. This makes the audience feel even more of a part of the show. This is what Marc Steel means in his article when he says that the reality show leaves the viewer feeling like a part of the experience.
We also have a blog post by an anonymous person named Aschreurs, who writes that, "a survey by PollingPoint.com, almost half of our nation's younger generation watches more reality television than last year. Eighteen to 25-year-olds watch close to four reality shows a week." Also, the "over 55 'category' keep up with at least two reality shows a week." So, reality television is strongly popular with a wide variety of ages because of all of the different kinds of reality shows available.” This shows how watching reality show on a regular basis becomes a craving for the audience, and even the writer feels that looking at such acts, people do waste time, and anybody would agree with her opinion. She has also talked about the variety of shows available in the television which makes it easier for the people to choose between the one they like and the one they don’t.
The writer of this blog has also talked about her own experience of wasting time in watching reality shows. She says, “As I recalled all of the reality shows I was presently watching, I realized that reality shows do consume a mass amount of my television viewing time, especially shows on MTV.” She also says that, “when watching reality shows, we "live vicariously through the "characters" on the show". We may really hate the characters and the way they act or because all of the drama they bring to the show, but these are the characters that make the show worth watching just to see what they will do next, or sometimes they remind us of people we know, so we connect with the show.” These experiences of her can be justified for the issue effects of reality shows on the viewers.
Now concluding our literature review we would like to say that different people have different views and opinions about various issues. These views can be both positive and negative. Considering Larry’s and Aschreurs’ blogs and Kashmira Lad’s and Marc Steel’s articles, we have got an outlook about what and how other people think about our Original Research in English essay topic. As one of them is based on a person’s own experience it makes it even easier to accomplish our task of how can people be affected by watching reality television.
Investigation
Our topic “The reality in the reality of the reality shows” is very vast and needs many areas to be investigated in order to find the right answer. According to its needs we thought of ways in which we could research on our topic and get its details and to do so we decided on many different tools and instruments. Here the tools and instruments would mean the internet, newspapers, magazines and surveys.
Internet
Internet is a source; it’s a network that provides every kind of information and keeps us connected with the world. Keeping this in mind we thought of making internet our main source of information. We decided that we would look at different articles, check other people’s blogs, go through websites relating to our topic and read all the possible articles which would talk about reality shows and see what are other’s view points on how fake or real these shows are.
Newspaper and magazines
Newspaper and magazines are another very important source of information. Newspapers also have articles which give us information on the minute details about shows like these which we knew would surely help us more on understanding the reason why people love these shows so much. Plus they might even give us details like when reality shows started and how they have changed in these many years and the major reason why they went through that change. This was the main reason why we choose newspapers and magazines as another tool.
Survey
As we thought that other people’s view and thoughts were important we decided to ask our own classmates as to what they think about reality shows and reasons why they enjoy watching it so much. Therefore we thought of conducting a survey in our school where we would distribute a paper which would include questions about reality shows. We will give this paper to a group of students which will include our friends and our classmates. This survey will help us a lot because we think it’s easier to understand your own age group’s thoughts than others plus surveys have always proved to be a very effective tool when it comes to a research work.
These are the most easily available and effective sources which might help us in our research work. Keeping this idea in mind we decided to finalize them and work further to make this investigation more successful and helpful.
Analysis
After the literature review and the investigation part is the most important section that is the analysis section. This section is important because it includes all our views and thoughts about the different areas and how effective they have been in our research work.
The tools that we had planned to investigate on turned out to be perfect for our research work and they helped us a lot. The internet, newspapers, magazines and the survey all proved to be very beneficial and effective. The results of the survey is in the end of this section.
After going through the written articles by different people on the net and newspapers and seeing the results of the survey we got many different views and points to think about and we finally could understand the reason why people would love reality shows so much and how it would affect their routines.
Reality television is overtaking the networks and polluting the viewer’s minds with distorted pictures of reality, leaving behind an even bigger effect than that of regular television.
How they get addicted:
When we talk about reality shows there is always an element of curiosity and excitement which provokes us to watch it even more. This is when we start getting addicted to these shows. Every episode unfolds a journey towards more thrill and pleasure.
It’s a human mentality; people just love seeing other people get into trouble. No matter what the situation might be but when it comes to seeing someone else’s defeat then it’s the spectator who enjoys it the most.
As we all know that reality shows are wanted and watched in majority of the countries and everyone who watches it enjoys it. However some people enjoy it more because they get a topic to discuss about. The discussion is just a start; it leads to the viewer’s interference in the participant’s life.
Another reason which needles the viewers to remove time from their daily lives to watch these shows is that these shows are spellbinding and the viewers are always dished up with unexpected ideas.
How it effects:
Reality shows are popular in almost every age group. Anyone who’s a fan of any of these shows tries his/her level best not to miss any of the episodes. However though these shows are very interesting, they are very time consuming. People waste a lot of their time watching these shows whereas it can be utilized for any other important work.
It’s a fact that children of age group 12- 19 falls in love with these reality shows and they make sure that they don’t even miss the making of that episode. However during this course of time they don’t realise that because of this serious addiction slowly and gradually starts affecting their behaviour. Their attitude towards things and people start changing and majority of the times their language also gets affected and shows like ‘Roadies’ are great examples.
However it’s not that reality shows just have negative effects. Sometimes they even leave a very positive impact on children thus it becomes a very important reason for them to watch it more. For example shows like American idol or America’s got talent or any other singing or dancing or cooking competition gives one encouragement to do big things and achieve great heights in life. And not only this but at times they learn so much from these shows that they try improving themselves and therefore are way more satisfied than before. They can learn how to evaluate themselves and can learn so many new things just by sitting at home.
We all know how easily children get distracted and how easy it is for them to start liking someone or even make them their idol. This is what usually happens with children who watch a lot of reality shows. They tend to make the participants their idols. However here it depends if the participant is good by nature or bad. If they are good and they really teach children great things then it’s fantastic but if they don’t then this becomes a very negative point and might be of some trouble because when children make someone their idol then they try and follow every single thing that they do which includes dressing, way of talking, lifestyle etc.
One of the biggest problems of getting addicted to these shows is that once you get into the routine of watching them every day you waste so much of time that a lot of your work becomes pending. And once these shows get over it becomes really hard for you to get back to your routine life and cover up for the work that has been piled up.
Therefore after going through all the positive and negative points we would conclude by saying that reality shows are good and entertaining however one should know his/her limits and should understand the importance of other things which are a part of your routine. If this would be kept in mind then reality shows would be the perfect pleasurable shows.
Here is the result of our survey:
The graph below is made on the base of time spend by students on reality shows.
Conclusion
In order to conclude our essay we would like to say that, we were successful in investigating and analysing our task, which holds the issue of the reality of the reality in the reality shows, i.e. the effects of such programmes on the viewers. In this section of our essay, we would like to evaluate our performance.
Our first task was literature review, where we got hold of good articles and blog posts on the internet, which helped us having a broader outlook on our topic. Next we had to investigate about our topic, which we did by doing a number of surveys and searching many articles on the internet, and hence analysing them. We could have improved this by expanding our survey amongst other grade students, to get a broader outlook, and by searching more articles from newspapers and magazines which would have added to our research tools. Then we had to an analysis on our research topic, which was made easier because of the investigation we had done.
After the evaluation, we would also like to give our opinion as to what should people do to get out of the addiction of such shows. The main disadvantage of watching such shows being the mass wastage of time, people should limit themselves to watch only one reality show a week, rather than watching three to four reality shows a week. This would help them manage their time in a great deal.
Therefore, we would now like to conclude our essay by expressing this much of our views and opinions about the reality of the reality in the reality shows.